Around that time, he tried to get near me again, brazenly invading my bedroom when he, his wife and other friends were visiting my parents for a small Christmas party. As I lay in my bed, terrified, he pretended to be impressed with the Snoopy hooked rug and Tiger Beat posters on my walls. And then, like a stealthy animal, he moved toward me and put his hands at the top of my blankets. I started crying, hoping it would scare him off. Thank God it did.
Things like this simply weren't discussed in our house. It didn't occur to my parents that sexual abuse could happen to someone in our family. "We lived in our own little world," my precious and incredibly supportive mother, whom I will never blame for anything, told me recently when we discussed what happened to me. "We trusted people."
The return of Roy
In the spring of 1991, I was 22, happy and about to finish my master's degree in journalism in Ottawa. My mother and I had phone conversations at least once a week. "My dear," she said one night, "you'll never believe who's going to jail for abuse." Then she said Roy's name. And something about a trial. And the word guilty.
Suddenly, I was cold. I struggled to keep my voice steady, not wanting Mom to sense the icy explosions in my soul. "Is that so?" I said. "My God."
That night, alone in my room, I took a deep breath and called the Grand Falls-Windsor RCMP. It was time to tell my story. I had waited long enough.
I learned a lot that week. A Mountie told me there were several victims, most of them between the ages of nine and 12 when they were abused.
A day or two after speaking with the police, I called my mother. Finally, with more than a decade of silence behind me, I had to tell her what was going on. "Remember you were saying Roy was going to jail for abuse?" I said. "Well, I don't want you to worry. But he abused me once, too."
My parents were shocked. They were angry at Roy, a "friend" who had betrayed their trust; but they believed me, supported my decision to tell the police and did what they could to help. Mom dug out a snapshot of me and my two cousins, smiling in Noreen's front yard on the day of the abuse. She even found a picture of Roy, crudely pointing up his wife's dress in the early 1980s. The RCMP wanted to see the pictures, so Mom brought them to the detachment. As always, she was on my side.
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